Illustrator

About Smart Guides

Smart Guides are temporary snap‑to guides that help you create, align, edit, and transform objects relative to other objects. To activate Smart Guides, choose View > Smart Guides.

You can use Smart Guides in the following ways:

  • When you create an object with the pen or shape tools, use the Smart Guides to position a new object's anchor points relative to an existing object.

  • When you move an object, use the Smart Guides to align your cursor to construction guides and existing paths. The alignment is based on the position of the pointer, not the edges of the object, so be sure to click to the exact point you want to align to.

  • When you transform an object, Smart Guides automatically appear to assist the transformation.

    You can change when and how Smart Guides appear by setting Smart Guide preferences.

    Note: When Snap To Grid is turned on, you cannot use Smart Guides (even if the menu command is selected).

Smart Guide preferences

Choose Edit > Preferences > Smart Guides & Slices (Windows) or Illustrator > Preferences > Smart Guides & Slices (Mac OS) to set the following preferences:

Text Label Hints
Displays information about the position the cursor is currently snapped to (such as center) as you manipulate the cursor.

Construction Guides
Displays guidelines in the file as you use Smart Guides.

Transform Tools
Displays information when you scale, rotate, and shear objects.

Object Highlighting
Highlights the object below the pointer as you drag around it.

Angles
Sets angles at which you want guidelines drawn from the anchor points of a nearby object. You can set up to six angles. Type an angle in the selected Angles box, select a set of angles from the Angles pop‑up menu, or select a set of angles from the pop‑up menu and change one of the values in the box to customize a set of angles. The preview reflects your settings.

Snapping Tolerance
Specifies the number of points the pointer must be from another object for Smart Guides to take effect.